


Stars Gather

by littledust



Category: Lumatere Chronicles - Melina Marchetta
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-23
Updated: 2013-12-23
Packaged: 2018-01-05 15:39:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,216
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1095716
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/littledust/pseuds/littledust
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"I'm with child," Phaedra said, laughing where she was weeping moments before. "I didn't want to tell you earlier, in case--in case I was wrong, but I'm sure."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Stars Gather

**Author's Note:**

  * For [thebluejay](https://archiveofourown.org/users/thebluejay/gifts).



> Happy Yuletide, dear recipient! I adore this series and was delighted to write in this fandom.

True spring stole across the mountain almost overnight, melting the last of the late snowstorm that covered the little violets. Phaedra cried for joy at the sight of their small flowered faces. It was thus that Lucian found her, kneeling in a patch of muddy earth outside their cottage, the sky over her head graying with the oncoming dawn.

"I had no idea you were so fond of flowers," he said, feeling foolish without knowing why. "Unless there's something the matter."

"There's nothing the matter, but I have news for you," she said, drying her eyes on the edge of her cloak. The gesture did little to clean her face, as that part of the cloak was as muddy as her knees, but the words caught in Lucian's throat when he beheld the light in her face. "Can you guess what it is?"

He nodded but said nothing, waiting for her to speak the words.

"I'm with child," Phaedra said, laughing where she was weeping moments before. "I didn't want to tell you earlier, in case--in case I was wrong, but I'm sure."

Now Lucian too knelt in the cold mud, his wife's face clasped between his hands. "You wonder," he said.

"I wonder what?" was her arch response. They would have to share their news soon, spoken aloud to nearby kin and written to friends and family far away, but just for now, this joy belonged to them alone.

*

There was great rejoicing at the good news, of course. Their health was toasted, as was the health of their unborn child. The Charynites, not yet lost to the wonder of childbirth, would stare at Phaedra's belly in wonder, hardly daring to ask for permission to touch. The Monts were loud and busy with their delight, and Lucian and Phaedra despaired of ever using all the baby blankets being knitted and thereby insulting some relative. In fact, Phaedra found herself wondering in subsequent days whether she was actually having a child or merely an endless series of conversations about a child that, in theory, might one day come.

"Make sure to swaddle the child this way and not that. Time to wean the child at this age and not that. A woman carries a boy this way and a girl that way. All this advice! Do you think we'll ever be able to follow it?" Phaedra asked Lucian, who earnestly persisted asking every parent he met for counsel. Next thing she knew and he would be asking the shepherds.

When Phaedra relayed this last bit of speculation, Lucian's only reply was, "Most of them are parents, aren't they?"

"I hope our babe will be smarter than a sheep, but perhaps the odds are against."

"Such harsh words! I might have to forbid you from reading Isaboe's and Quintana's letters."

"This from the man expecting a sheep in five months!"

*

The work did not stop for their news or the joy it brought, of course. Phaedra went down to the valley despite morning sickness, despite exhaustion, and then despite the summer heat that wrapped the land like a blanket. "I have to work," she insisted when her ankles swelled and her fellow Charynites made her sit down for a drink of water. "There's too much to do."

By this point most of the local women were crowded into her small oasis of shade. "Plenty of work to be done just growing a babe inside you," Cora said. The others nodded along with her statement; even those who spoke a bare handful of the language could follow her meaning. "Besides, you haven't chosen a name yet!"

Someone fetched Lucian to attend to more important business than the upcoming harvest. "Everyone wants to know what the child's name will be, boy or girl," Lucian said to Phaedra with a roll of his eyes, but knelt to refill her cup anyway. "I told them Lotte or Orly, and they told me they wouldn't be put off that easily."

"Sergius for a boy, Nydia for a girl."

"Damara for a girl, Matthias for a boy!"

"Would it be in poor taste for a half-Charynite to be named after a Mont relative?"

"Family is family."

"You could combine a Charynite name with a Lumateran one," Constance kept insisting, despite rejection from both factions.

In the midst of this great debate, no one noticed the expectant parents stealing away for a midday nap. What else was there to do in such heat?

*

The queens came at dusk, after the harvest feast but long before the drinking ended. Phaedra waited for them at her cottage door, watching the sun dip pink and orange below the horizon, and smiled that they should arrive at the same time despite coming from two different directions. "I suppose I'll see my baby soon," she said, and pressed a hand over her belly to quell the flutter of terror. It would not do to reveal her fear in front of the woman who taught her how to be strong.

"I dreamed it," Isaboe said, smiling. "I dreamed a beautiful child, Phaedra. You needn't be afraid."

"Your fear will protect the babe," Quintana added. "As will I."

"I've missed you," Phaedra said, awkwardly embracing Quintana around her swollen belly. After a moment's hesitation, she did the same to Isaboe, who squeezed her shoulders in understanding. "I'm glad you came."

"This is a matter of international importance. For instance, I hear you haven't decided on a name for the child yet…"

Phaedra opened her mouth to protest that, while she and Lucian hadn't exactly decided on a name, they had decided to wait until they met the child. She got as far as, "Well--" before her water broke.

*

The baby girl slipped into the world under autumn starlight, the moon the barest crescent slice against the sky. She was quiet for one terrible moment and then burst forth with a series of lusty cries, squalling her displeasure at the oncoming cold.

"An easy birth," Yata said with satisfaction. "First ones aren't usually, but our Phaedra did well."

Isaboe spent several minutes at the washbasin, rinsing her hands long after the blood had gone. There was Jasmina to remember, but also the little grave next to Evanjalin. Quintana gave Phaedra's hand a final press and went to Isaboe's side. Sympathy was too soft a word for her expression, but its ferocity spoke of protection for all current inhabitants of the cottage.

"I want her to see her home," Phaedra said, and so after initial protests and many admonitions to wrap up warm, Lucian carried mother and child out into the night.

"If this one were a boy, I was going to call him _Luc-ien_ ," he confessed, kissing his wife's brow.

Phaedra laughed, a small and bright sound after so many cries of pain. "I was thinking the same."

The baby, swaddled in at least three blankets, stirred in Phaedra's arms with a small burbling sound. Lucian kissed her brow, too. "There's a name that means star-born," he said, hesitant. "It's pronounceable in both languages, too."

Phaedra straightened in his arms, pulling herself upright. "Say it."

"Sidra."

"Sidra," she repeated, and settled back with a sigh of contentment. "Sidra."

Behind them, the lights in the cottage flickered, as though tiny stars themselves.


End file.
